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Carrboro’s Mill No. 7: munitions plant to woolen mill, 1942–1955

The National Munitions shell-loading plant in the old Carr mills and its Army-Navy E awards, its closing in August 1945, and Pacific Mills’ Carrboro Woolen Mills until 1955.

In briefIn 1942 National Munitions Corporation turned Carrboro's empty Mill No. 7 into a shell-loading plant for Navy anti-aircraft ammunition. It grew to more than 500 workers, won the Army-Navy E award in January 1943 and renewals after it, and closed on August 17, 1945, when the Navy canceled its contracts. Pacific Mills of Boston had bought the old Mill No. 4 building that January and opened Carrboro Woolen Mills there in April 1945; it bought Mill No. 7 as well, with the deed filed in May 1946, and in 1947 the government sued National Munitions over excessive war profits. Pacific Mills later closed the Carrboro woolen operation, in the mid-1950s by one account and the early 1960s by another.

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In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 25 dated events in the chronology →

  1. National Munitions Corporation takes over a Carrboro hosiery mill for shell loading The National Munitions Corporation bought the idle Durham Hosiery Mills building to the left of the railway station in Carrboro, with several nearby houses, to load anti-aircraft shells for the Navy with about 150 local workers in three shifts. By mid-March repairs were under way, L. J. Phipps was its resident director, and more than 300 job seekers had applied for birth certificates at the register of deeds' office in Hillsboro. People: Luther James Phipps, Samuel Weldon AndrewsThe Chapel Hill Weekly, March 13, 1942, p. 1
  2. A wartime munitions plant opens in the former Mill No. 7 National Munitions Corporation converted the empty Mill No. 7 on Roberson Street into a shell-loading plant that pressed tetryl pellets for Navy anti-aircraft ammunition, growing from about 126 workers to more than 500; an explosion hit its pellet houses on September 6, 1942.DigitalNC: Bazooka Day Demo, Pellet Houses Explosion Photographs, and More in Latest Batch Centered on National Munitions Corporation · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, June 19, 1942, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, August 14, 1942, p. 1
  3. The munitions plant payroll revives Carrboro's trade The Weekly reported that the munitions plant, in operation about two months and hiring mostly from Carrboro and nearby, had a payroll of several thousand dollars a week, and that Carrboro people were paying debts, repairing their homes and buying war bonds after the depression that had followed Durham Hosiery's closing of its two Carrboro plants.The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 14, 1942, p. 1
  4. An explosion at the Carrboro munitions plant kills one worker A blast in a small frame mixing house at the munitions plant in Carrboro, a few minutes before 6 a.m., killed a 29-year-old worker from Durham and slightly injured seven men, most of them from Carrboro and nearby. The Carrboro fire company put out the fire that followed; the explosion shook houses in Chapel Hill as well as Carrboro, and armed guards kept a crowd of anxious relatives outside the plant gates.The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 11, 1942, p. 1
  5. National Munitions plant in Carrboro reaches full payroll-deduction bond buying State payroll-savings chairman Charles H. Robertson was notified on Thanksgiving Day that every employee of the National Munitions Corporation plant in Carrboro had signed up for bond deductions, with ten percent of total wages going into War Bonds, and the Treasury sent the plant its Certificate of Award. People: Charles H. Robertson, Carl T. Durham, W. E. ThompsonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, December 4, 1942, p. 1
  6. The National Munitions Corporation plant in Carrboro receives the Army-Navy E award Comdr. Merle A. Sawyer of the Navy formally presented the Army-Navy E award for war production to the National Munitions Corporation of Carrboro. The Pre-Flight band played for the ceremony, which many of the school's officers and its entire 14th Battalion attended.Search the index · Cloudbuster (Navy Pre-Flight School, Chapel Hill), January 30, 1943, p. 1
  7. The National Munitions plant in Carrboro wins a star renewing its Army-Navy E The Navy Board for Production Awards renewed the Carrboro plant's Army-Navy E for six more months for continued production and sent a new pennant bearing one star. At the Navy's request there was no ceremony; workers hired since the first award were to receive E pins.The Chapel Hill Weekly, July 16, 1943, p. 4
  8. Carrboro's National Munitions plant wins the Army-Navy E a third time The Army-Navy E for excellence in production was awarded for the third time to the National Munitions Corporation plant at Carrboro. A letter from Admiral Bloch of the Navy Board for Production Awards to the plant's president praised the workers and said a new pennant bearing two stars was being sent.The News (Chapel Hill), February 3, 1944, p. 1
  9. The National Munitions plant at Carrboro receives the first National Security Award given in North Carolina The U.S. Office of Civilian Defense presented its National Security Award, given for guarding a plant against accidents and sabotage, to the National Munitions Corporation at Carrboro on May 25, 1944, the first such award to a North Carolina firm. Regional director James A. Connor presented the award, general manager M. J. Williams accepted it, Lieutenant Governor R. L. Harris spoke, and the Navy Pre-Flight band played. People: Robert W. MadrySearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 25, 1944, p. 1
  10. The National Munitions plant at Carrboro wins a third star for its Army-Navy E flag The National Munitions Corporation's Carrboro plant was awarded a third star for its Army-Navy E for war production, announced in August 1944 in a letter from Admiral C. C. Bloch, chairman of the Navy board of production awards, congratulating every worker in the plant. The plant had been the first in North Carolina to receive the Army-Navy E.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 10, 1944, p. 1
  11. Pacific Mills bricks up the Carrboro mill's windows to air-condition it When Pacific Mills put air conditioning into the Carrboro mill it filled in nearly every window, more than 100 openings in all, leaving only the north and office wings unchanged. Thomas's 1979 report puts the work in the 1950s, but The News of Orange County reported in September 1945 that the windows had been broken out and bricked up and that Bahnson Co. of Winston-Salem had the air conditioning job about half done.Search the index · Margaret A. Thomas, Carr Mill, Carrboro, North Carolina: A Rehabilitation Project under the Tax Reform Act (1979), scan p. 5 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 20, 1945, p. 1; The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 1, 1945, p. 1
  12. Pacific Mills of Boston buys the old Durham Hosiery mill building in Carrboro Pacific Mills of Boston bought the idle Durham Hosiery Mills No. 4 building in Carrboro, then used for storage, for a reported $60,000 to house a 54-loom worsted and woolen weaving unit. The plant was to weave cloth for the armed forces and employ 70 to 80 workers on each of three shifts once federal agencies approved.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 1, 1945, p. 1
Show all 25 dated events
  1. The Carrboro munitions plant wins a fourth renewal of its Army-Navy E The National Munitions Corporation's plant in Carrboro received word from Adm. C. C. Bloch of the Navy Board of Production Awards that it had earned a fourth renewal of the Army-Navy E and a flag with four stars, to keep for a year before its next review.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 11, 1945, p. 1
  2. Carrboro munitions workers triple their Seventh War Loan quota in a week In a special emphasis week, workers at the National Munitions Corporation plant in Carrboro bought $42,581.25 in war bonds in six days, against $15,000 set for the week and $29,475 for the whole Seventh War Loan. Harry Breeze's C shift won the contest between shifts, payroll deduction rose from 88 to 92 percent of workers, and the plant earned the Treasury T flag.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 26, 1945, p. 1
  3. The former Alberta mill reopens as Carrboro Woolen Mills After fifteen idle years the modernized Mill No. 4 building reopened as Carrboro Woolen Mills, owned by Pacific Mills of Boston. It began weaving cloth for the armed forces on twelve looms in late April 1945 and ran until the early 1960s.Carr Mill Mall: History · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 3, 1945, p. 1
  4. The National Munitions plant in Mill No. 7 closes The shell-loading plant that National Munitions Corporation had run in Mill No. 7 since 1942 closed when workers coming back from the two-day victory holiday on Friday, August 17, 1945 learned that the Navy had canceled its contracts, leaving about 500 people out of work. At its peak it employed 1,600 people, many of them former mill hands assembling anti-aircraft rounds, and it won the Army-Navy E award for production three times.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 25 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 23, 1945, p. 1
  5. Carrboro Woolen Mills enlarges its plant in its first year A year after its first run, the Pacific Mills plant in Carrboro had grown from 53,000 to 85,000 square feet of floor space, with a new warehouse going up, and employed about 175 people, nearly all local. It trained workers in its own loom school and had moved from Navy uniform cloth to all-wool fabric for women's and children's wear.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 2, 1946, p. 1
  6. Pacific Mills buys the former munitions plant in Carrboro's Mill No. 7 The deed transferring the National Munitions property in Carrboro, the former Durham Hosiery Mill No. 7, to Pacific Mills, Inc., was filed with the register of deeds. Pacific Mills, which already ran the Carrboro Woolen Mills in old Mill No. 4, planned to renovate the 38,000-square-foot building for woolen and worsted yarn and roughly double its Carrboro output.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 30, 1946, p. 1
  7. The government sues Carrboro's National Munitions Corporation over war profits The federal government filed two suits in the Durham division of the middle district federal court asking National Munitions Corporation of Carrboro to repay $2,200,000 in excessive profits on Navy contracts: $1,600,000 for the year ending July 31, 1944, and $600,000 for the next year. The government said the company had paid nothing after the price adjustment boards ruled.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 25, 1947, p. 1
  8. Carrboro Woolen Mills buys the wartime munitions plant The Carrboro property of National Munitions Corporation, whose plant had employed many county people during the war, had recently been bought by Carrboro Woolen Mills, a division of Pacific Mills.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 25, 1947, p. 1
  9. A labor board examiner finds Carrboro Mills fired three workers for union activity In September 1952, nine months after a hearing at Carrboro, National Labor Relations Board trial examiner Max M. Goldman recommended that the Carrboro Mills plant of Pacific Mills be ordered to give three former workers their jobs back with full seniority, finding they had been fired for union activity, as the CIO's Textile Workers Union of America had charged. Plant manager Thomas Murray called the report completely one-sided and said the company would appeal any such order.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 18, 1952, p. 1
  10. Labor board finds Carrboro Mills guilty of unfair labor practices In late January 1953 the National Labor Relations Board upheld its trial examiner's finding that the Carrboro Mills division of Pacific Mills had tried to discourage union organizing and had fired three workers for union activity, on a complaint by the Textile Workers Union of America, CIO. The board ordered the company to stop and to rehire the workers with back pay; plant manager Thomas Murray said the mill would not comply and would take the case to court.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 29, 1953, p. 1
  11. The Textile Workers Union files a new unfair-labor charge against Carrboro Mills The Textile Workers Union of America filed a new complaint with the National Labor Relations Board office in Winston-Salem charging that Pacific Mills' Carrboro woolen plant had fired or refused to hire seven people for their union membership or activity. Union area director Julius R. Fry said the union had been trying to organize the 600-worker mill for two years and that an earlier NLRB order to reinstate three workers with back pay was before the federal appeals court; plant manager Thomas Murray said the complaint surprised him.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 26, 1953, p. 1
  12. More than 1,000 visitors tour Carrboro Mills on its plant visitation day Carrboro Mills, the Pacific Mills woolen division, opened both of its plants to employees' families and friends, who followed marked routes past posted explanations of the work and then ate a picnic lunch on the lawn of Plant No. 2. Company officials called it one of the most successful such days at any of their plants.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 28, 1953, p. 1
  13. Pacific Mills announces it will close Carrboro Mills Pacific Mills, which had reopened Mill No. 4 as Carrboro Woolen Mills in 1945 and later bought the idle Mill No. 7, announced on June 17, 1958 that Carrboro Mills would shut down within two or three months. The plant was the community's only industry, with 380 workers and a payroll of more than $900,000 a year. By then the university and nearby businesses were taking industry's place as Carrboro's employers.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 25 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 19, 1958, p. 1

Places in this history

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Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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Background on Work, Labor & Industry

Background reading on Work, Labor & Industry. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Widely held

Sheer Resilience : An Untold Story of A Free Community of Color in Orange County, N.C

Scarlett, Beverly A. · 2024

Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 306.363 SCARLETT

Working for A Living

Orange County Historical Museum (N.C.) · 2024

Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 ORANGE

Reclaiming the University of the People: Racial Justice Movements at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1951-2018

Fryar, Charlotte · 2019

Charlotte Fryar's 2019 doctoral dissertation on racial justice movements at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1951, the year the university admitted its first Black students, through 2018. Topics include African American students and employees, school desegregation, racial discrimination and activism, and the work belongs to the history of race relations on the Chapel Hill campus.

UNC ERIC

Everything Orange : the most comprehensive guide to living in Orange County : Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Carrboro

2016 · Herald-Sun

A newspaper guide to living in Orange County, first issued as an insert to the Herald-Sun of March 27, 2016. It covers Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, with listings of local government officials and employees for the county and each town. Published by the Herald-Sun in Durham, 62 pages with color illustrations and portraits.

UNC

The Key

Berman, Rita · 2014

Rita Berman's short novel set in Chapel Hill, with a carpenter among its central characters, which class it as both romance and thriller. Published by Righter Books of Timberlake, North Carolina, in 2014, 97 pages.

UNC CH Historical Society

Orange County, North Carolina

2012

A group of materials combining a county planning document with a highway map of Orange County, dated 2012. The planning piece, issued in Raleigh by a state commission, lays out a planning and management process for the county with recommendations on land development. The map, based on the statewide highway planning survey, shows roads, bridges, utilities, public property, businesses and industries across Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough; one copy carries red-pencil notes naming the county's voting precincts.

✓ Held at OCPL · 368.122 ORANGE UNC Duke Library of Congress
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Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century

Thorp, Holden; Goldstein, Buck · 2010

Holden Thorp, then chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Buck Goldstein make the case for the entrepreneurial university in chapters on entrepreneurial science, enterprise creation, social entrepreneurship, multidisciplinary centers, leadership, academic roles, teaching entrepreneurship, accountability and the new donors. Topics include entrepreneurship at Chapel Hill and academic-industrial collaboration in North Carolina. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010, 170 pages.

Reviewed in New England journal of entrepreneurship (2011).

UNC Chapel Hill PL Durham NC Cardinal CH Historical Society Library of Congress

History of Patterson Mill, New Hope Creek, Orange County, NC

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

Stewart E. Dunaway's 2010 study of Patterson Mill, a gristmill site on New Hope Creek where Orange County meets Chatham County. The book pairs a short genealogy of the Patterson family with a close survey of what remains of the mill on land now inside Duke Forest, supported by maps, facsimile documents and illustrations across 176 pages. Self-published in a second issue dated October 10, 2010.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY NC Cardinal UNC

Johnston and Robson Mill History, New Hope Creek (Orange Co., N.C.)

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

Stewart E. Dunaway's history of the two mills George Johnston built on New Hope Creek in Orange County, the first in 1793 and the second in 1820, the earlier of which he sold to the Englishman William Robson. Self-published in 2010, 256 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles. Topics include gristmills in Orange County and the Blackwood, Johnston, Robinson and Robson families, so the volume serves both mill history and genealogy.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY UNC Duke Durham NC Cardinal

At the heart of progress: coal, iron, and steam since 1750 : industrial imagery from the John P. Eckblad collection

Riggs, Timothy A. · 2009 · Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Exhibition book by Timothy A. Riggs for a 2009 show at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill drawn from John P. Eckblad's collection of prints depicting coal, iron and steam industry since 1750. The exhibition ran from January 24 to May 17, 2009. Fifty-two pages, chiefly color illustrations, published by the museum.

NC Cardinal Duke

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991: interview L-0064-6, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sixth Pollitt interview, recorded March 21 and 22, 1991, by Ann McColl, about an hour long. Its single subject is the 1969 strike by food service workers at UNC, which Pollitt supported. He sets the strike in its local and national context, the labor and civil rights currents of the late 1960s, then follows how it unfolded among the workers, their union backers, the faculty and the university administration. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974: interview E-0062, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Davis, Ashley · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

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